Thursday, June 3, 2010

Sitting on the beach, overwhelmed with a glorious sensory overload, I thought of two dear friends whom I knew were there with me in spirit. Given that they weren't actually within earshot to hear either a squee of delight, a sigh of contentment, or an alternating rhythm of the two, I decided to text them a simple message.

In my immediate short-term memory, or within my direct line of sight were several captivating images.

Like this one.

Or this one.

Or this one.

Or this one.

And definitely this one.

So. I scrolled to their names in my cell, composed a simple three-word text message, and hit "send."

My phone buzzed me back almost immediately with a response from sweet CVZ, with the simple advice to "enjoy" and her always-appropriate admonition to "breathe." (I do need reminding. To breathe. It's a problem.) A few minutes later, my phone buzzed again. Absorbed with all my my enjoying and breathing, I reached for it with a smile, certain it would be an equally happy response from sweet SPG.

Hmm.

Apparently, I only had SPG's landline programmed. The notice was from Verizon, kindly offering to transmit my text as a voice message. For a split second (Or two. I can be impulsive. It's a problem. Ironically, SPG is the one who has talked me down off that particular ledge.), I considered it. I thought, "Wow-isn't-that-cool-you-can-send-a-text-to-a-landline-and-it-magically-turns-into-a-voice-message." Just as my finger was headed in for a landing on the "send" key, two things occurred to me.

One:It wouldn't be my voice. It would probably be some skeevy computer-generated voice. Or worse, a voice like the lady who lives inside the voicemail box. Who doesn't sound like me, but might sound enough like somebody to make SPG wonder, "Do I know this chick?"

Two:Context. Not only would a disembodied, unknown voice be delivering the message, but those three words would be delivered in the absence of any frame of reference.

I started to imagine picking up my own phone to hear something along the lines of: "the following is a message from meaningless-number-number-number (I don't know anyone's actual phone number anymore. Do you?) ..." followed by my well-intentioned, share-the-moment three-word text. And then I decided against it.

Because I may be overly excitable, impulsive and even delightfully obnoxious, but even I know hearing a random voice on the phone saying "greetings from heaven" is just creepy.